Acocks Green Against the Bedroom Tax!

On 23 July, Acocks Green saw its first anti-bedroom tax meeting, organised by local Socialist Party activist Eamonn Flynn.

The 40 people attending listened to Dave Nellist, former Labour MP and Socialist Party councillor.

Dave compared social housing tenants losing 14% or 25% of their housing benefit for having ‘spare rooms’, to the £10,000s claimed by MPs for having a second home in London. With 23 millionaires in the Con-Dem cabinet, the bedroom tax is a law by the rich, for the rich.

The insanity of the bedroom tax was illustrated by a recent case with a major housing association, where Dave had helped in a dispute over the designation of a 4’1″ wide box-room as a spare bedroom!

He proposed that, if councillors continue to implement the bedroom tax, ordinary working class people should put forward candidates of their own; representatives who would fight for the interests of working class people of Birmingham.

There were many in the audience who gave accounts of their very difficult circumstances, including a woman whose son was away in the army so his room is classified as spare!

At the end of the meeting, many attendees put themselves forward to help set up a local anti-bedroom tax group.